Source: Fast Company, Elizabeth Segran
Photo: Prepwell

A former automotive engineer left his job to solve the most overlooked problem in your kitchen. The result is beautiful, functional—and expensive.

The cutting board may be the most used object in your kitchen, but its design hasn’t changed considerably since 3,000 BCE, when the ancient Egyptians began using slabs of wood for food preparation.

The cutting board has to do a lot of work: It needs to absorb knife marks, soak up onion juice, and be big enough to hold vegetables and scraps. On a daily basis, home cooks are forced to confront the logistical problem of where to put the parsley they just chopped when they move on to the carrots. By the end of meal prep, the kitchen counter is littered with food waste and crowded with mismatched bowls of ingredients.

It seems like a minor inconvenience, one that most of us manage every day. But Tom Palmer believed the humble cutting board could be improved. Palmer had spent eight years as an automotive engineer at GM who led a team of 54 employees working on the Cadillac Escalade. But on the side, he was an obsessive woodworker. “As soon as I bought my house I wanted to make furniture for it,” he says. “And one of the first things you start making are cutting boards.”

He made one for his parents and added a little waste tray to the top that connected through magnets. They kept telling him how useful it was. So Palmer continued to tinker with the design, adding bowls on the side and rethinking the materials.

Two years of development later, he’s launching Prepwell. It’s a modular cutting board system called the Chef Station that has four different trays that can be attached to three sides of the solid wood board with magnets to hold ingredients and scraps. The set comes with silicone liners for the trays that can be thrown in the dishwasher, as well as stainless steel liners that are oven-safe for cooking.

You can also buy a supplemental board that clips to the top to separate vegetables and meat. “If we could create a system that was good for cooking, serving, and storing, we could have something that people would want,” Palmer says of his thinking for the design.

There’s a catch, though. The full Prepwell system costs $545, and if you want the supplemental board or lids, that’ll cost you another $75 and $35, respectively. This makes Palmer’s product roughly 10 times more expensive than the average cutting board on the market—and significantly more than even high-end cutting boards like Boos Blocks, whose most expensive boards cost roughly $300.

When I tested the Prepwell Chef Station, I was impressed by how thoughtfully it’s designed for everyday use. The board and the trays all snap together perfectly, which allowed me to create a neat workstation. As I cut asparagus, tofu, and green onions, I slid them into separate trays. When I started cooking, I was able to throw them into the pan at the right time. The supplemental board was a game-changer for me. I’m used to doing a shuffle between meat and vegetable boards. But this system made the process seamless.

Palmer admits that his product is expensive, but he says he’s found a market for it. To fund the initial inventory, he turned to Kickstarter, launching a campaign that ran last fall. The campaign garnered 1,380 preorders, which he’s just shipped out, and the brand’s website is now up and running and ready for new customers.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that an ultra-high-end cutting board is seeing success. Americans are spending more on their kitchens than ever. The U.S. kitchenware market is forecast to grow from $20.37 billion in 2024 to $37.19 billion in 2033. Our pandemic-era obsession with upgrading domestic life never entirely subsided, and many people have kept up the cooking habits they cultivated during lockdown.

Add to that the fact that younger generations care a lot about how the products in their kitchen look, and the growth of aesthetically pleasing cookware brands like Caraway and Our Place makes sense. These trends shaped Palmer’s approach to Prepwell’s design. “If you were going to have friends over for dinner, would you leave this out, or would you want to hide it away?” he asks.

Palmer says his target customer is anyone who has ever tucked a cutting board in the pantry before guests arrived. As he’s studied the customers who have purchased his Chef Station so far, he’s found that they include design obsessives, serious home cooks willing to pay for a better system, and newly married couples investing in outfitting their first home.

A year ago, Palmer decided to focus on Prepwell in earnest. He went to his manager at GM and asked for a 12-month leave of absence to see whether he could make this business work. His manager agreed. And his training has turned out to be a big asset throughout the R&D process.

Palmer has spent his career managing factory relationships, holding suppliers to time and quality requirements, and designing for manufacturing at scale. All of this came in handy as he worked with overseas partners to go from his original handcrafted prototypes to mass production. “When you’ve gone through production,” he says, “you learn about the failure points in the system. Whatever I’m designing needs to be foolproof.”

For instance, when designing for cars, Palmer knows it makes more sense to choose specialist factories for each component, even though it’s easier and more streamlined to find a single factory that can make all of them. For Prepwell, he’s found separate factories for steel and wood. To learn about their quality-control processes he visited the factories in person.

In the past, many direct-to-consumer brands would raise venture capital to launch a product like this. But Palmer has chosen not to go that route. For anyone who observed the DTC boom of the early 2010s—the mattress, luggage, and towel startups that burned through VC cash on Facebook ads without ever turning a profit—Palmer’s approach seems like a deliberate correction. Prepwell is running paid ads on Meta, but the math is simple: Sell more than you spend, and scale from there.

A few weeks after launching Prepwell’s website, Palmer says the company is already profitable. “We’re trying to postpone a fundraise as long as possible,” he says. “Just bootstrap it as long as we can.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Segran has been a staff writer at Fast Company since 2014. She covers fashion, retail, and sustainability. She has interviewed Virgil Abloh, Mara Hoffman, Telfar, Diane von Furstenberg, and Ulla Johnson, among many other designers.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91522390/the-simple-cutting-board-gets-a-long-overdue-modular-redesign

Source: Forbes, Alex Knapp and Michael Noer, Forbes Staff
Photo: Forbes

INNOVATION is the grease in the economic engine, the sparkle that keeps culture fresh and the key ingredient in nearly every billion-dollar fortune. To kick off our yearlong series of special reports celebrating America’s 250th birthday, we present the men and women who best embody that creative spirit. All of them are in the mold of the quintessential American innovator, Thomas Edison. That means they aren’t just inventors; they’re business leaders who bring their breakthroughs to market, transforming entire industries and creating new ones.

To identify the top 250 living innovators (a list of the 250 greatest historic ones can be found here), we first tapped the expertise of Forbes’ beat reporters, who nominated nearly a thousand candidates. We ran those names by a panel of world-class judges—including Jim Breyer, founder of Breyer capital; tech journalist Kara Swisher; and innovation expert Rita McGrath—who ranked them based on creativity, breadth, engagement, disruption and commercial impact. Then we fed the results into the most revolutionary innovation of our time—artificial intelligence—asking both ChatGPT and Gemini to rank them according to the same criteria. Taking all this into account, Forbes editors then determined the final ranking.

Progress, an inherent innovation corollary, continues. More than one-third of our ranking consists of women and people of color. That’s vastly more than would have appeared, using the same methodology, 50 years ago at America’s bicentennial and surely fewer than will appear at our tricentennial. Capital, however slowly, chases talent, wherever and whoever it is. Every person here is an American citizen, though many weren’t born that way. The United States is a nation of immigrants, and this list reflects that, starting at the very top.

How Forbes Compiled The Innovator 250 List

Author: Alex Knapp,Forbes Staff. Alex Knapp is a Forbes senior editor covering healthcare and science.

Forbes’ Innovator 250 list highlights those American citizens who best embody the American spirit of invention, as viewed through Forbes’ celebration of entrepreneurial capitalism. These aren’t just inventors or scientists (though plenty are represented), but rather those who used their creative spark to make a commercial impact, disrupting entire fields along the way.

Two lists were created: one of living innovators and one of historic innovators, following this methodology. The selection process began within our own newsroom, as our expert beat reporters put up nearly 2,000 combined candidates for both lists.

For the living innovators, we then worked with a panel of outside judges to each rate a subset of the list that was relevant to their expertise. For the historic list, we consulted with the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which has inducted great minds since 1973. We also asked them to suggest people we might be missing.

Each candidate was judged across five criteria:

Creativity: How novel their innovation was.

Breadth: How many ways they innovated.

Disruption: How they changed their industry.

Engagement: How hands-on they were in bringing their ideas to life.

Impact: How this person affected the economy and people’s daily lives.

The judging panel included: Jim Breyer, founder, Breyer Capital; Ken Frazier, former CEO, Merck; Sonia Gardner, cofounder, Avenue Capital Group; Monica Jones, CEO, National Inventors Hall of Fame; Rich Karlgaard, former publisher, Forbes; Michael Kitces, head of planning strategy, Focus Partners Wealth; Mike Mayo, managing director, Wells Fargo Securities; Rita McGrath, academic director in executive education, Columbia Business School; Katie Rae, managing partner, Engine Ventures; Kara Swisher, podcaster and editor‑at‑large, New York magazine; Josh Wolfe, cofounder, Lux Capital.

We also took advantage of artificial intelligence by asking OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to rate every innovator we considered along the same list of criteria. We had a certain logic to this: because large language models are trained on the entire corpus of the internet, their responses offered a broad consensus. That said, they had their own quirks—and ChatGPT was a tougher grader.

Finally, Forbes editors took all this input together to debate, curate and rank a final list that reflects the breadth of American innovation across industries.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2026/02/11/forbes-250-americas-greatest-innovators

Source: Science Focus
Photo: A NASA engineer checks six flight-ready segments of the JWST’s primary mirror, a third of the final total. (Photo: NASA/JPL)

We asked the world’s foremost minds to highlight some of the game-changing scientific breakthroughs shaping our world since the year 2000

As the 21st century gathers pace, it’s clear we’re living through a golden age of scientific discovery. From rewiring our understanding of the Universe to reshaping the tools of everyday life, breakthroughs once thought impossible are now shaping the world around us.

To reflect on the progress so far, we asked some of the world’s leading thinkers to spotlight the groundbreaking scientific breakthroughs that have transformed our world since the turn of the millennium.

1. Dream engineering

Until the turn of the last century, psychologists often argued that dreaming was a meaningless experience best confined to the fringes of science. But the 21st century has witnessed a surge of scientific interest in our nocturnal adventures and produced a steady stream of articles exploring the psychology of dreaming.

Some of this work has explored how dreaming can help people process negative emotions and prepare them for challenging events in the real world. Another strand of research has explored the link between dreams and creativity, and has shown that our dreaming minds often come up with new and innovative solutions to pressing problems.

There’s also work that has looked at the social side of dreaming, with psychologists arguing that discussing a dream with others is an effective way of forming and maintaining caring relationships.

Other scientists have taken a different approach and developed techniques that allow them to communicate with people experiencing a lucid dream.

Finally, there’s dream engineering, wherein researchers use smells, sounds and suggestions to manipulate our dreaming minds.

For years, trying to convince scientists to take dreams seriously was a nightmare. Now the tide has turned and we’re starting to uncover the many ways in which dreaming makes a vital contribution to our waking lives.

2. A new type of stem cell

Before 2006, if researchers wanted to work with human embryonic stem cells, they had to work with human embryos. This was ethically charged territory – the embryos were leftovers from fertility treatments and were destroyed in the process.

Then Prof Shinya Yamanaka from Kyoto University devised a way to make embryonic stem cells without using embryos.

By adding a handful of genes into cultured skin cells and nurturing them with certain nutrients, adult cells could be reprogrammed to become ‘induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.’

‘Pluripotent’ means that these lab-made stem cells can turn – or ‘differentiate’ – into many other types of cells, including heart cells and neurons.

Now researchers can take cells from an adult animal, turn them into iPS cells and then turn them into the specialised cells of their choice. iPS cells are now routinely used to help test new drugs and therapies, but perhaps their most exciting use is in the field of regenerative medicine.

Imagine a patient with heart disease. Now imagine taking some of their skin cells and using iPS technology to create a pool of healthy heart cells.

The replacement tissue could then be transplanted into the patient’s heart to repair it, and because the cells are the patient’s own, there would be no danger of the tissue being rejected.

The same method could be applied to other conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and kidney failure, raising the prospect of cures for currently incurable diseases.

Such brilliant, versatile cells… It’s no wonder that Yamanaka received a Nobel Prize in 2012 for his work in their discovery.

3. Global heating

Only by looking into the past can we get an inkling of the seriousness of today’s climate predicament.

The terrifying reality is that the global average temperature rise, which is now teetering on the edge of the 1.5°C dangerous climate breakdown guardrail, is occurring 50 times faster than when the world warmed after the Ice Age.

That was 56 million years ago, during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).

The episode of rapid heating saw dead, oxygen-depleted oceans and sea levels 50m higher than they are now. And the global temperature today is ramping-up at least ten times faster than during the PETM.

We’re in the middle of a unique climate experiment, continually pumping out 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, and hoping that it’ll be fine. I can tell you now, it won’t be.

4. Attribution analysis

In a nutshell, attribution analysis seeks to determine the extent to which global heating has influenced a particular extreme weather event, such as increasing its intensity or raising its likelihood.

It involves running two computer simulations. One assumes today’s artificially heated climate, the other assumes a pre-industrial climate with all the human influences removed.

Comparison reveals whether global heating had an effect and, if so, what it was. The first-ever attribution analysis determined that the 2003 European heatwave (which claimed 70,000 lives and saw temperatures breach the 37°C/98°F mark for the first time in the UK) was made twice as likely by global heating.

Attribution analysis sheds light on the growing impact global heating is having on our weather patterns, while also loudly undermining the climate deniers – a win all round.

5. mRNA vaccines

The use of mRNA for various medical applications has been in development for decades. It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that the impact of the technology was first felt, however.

mRNA vaccines allow for the development of vaccines far more quickly than was previously possible – two months for COVID-19 compared to the previous record of four years.

It’s estimated that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives in their first year of use.

In the coming years, we’ll likely have a range of new mRNA vaccines for other viruses that change regularly, like the flu, as well as for viruses that haven’t responded well to previous vaccine technology, like HIV.

6. The Human Genome Project

In 1990, scientists began to sequence the human genome. It took until 2022 to produce a complete sequence.

This achievement has profoundly changed biomedical science, allowing for research and technology that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, like using CRISPR to modify genetic diseases.

We’re just starting to feel the impact of this achievement on medical practice. By knowing our genome, it’s possible to find changes in genes that are associated with, or even cause, various diseases.

This increases our understanding of those diseases, as well as our ability to diagnose and treat them.

7. Solving the ‘einstein’ problem

I believe the most important mathematical breakthrough this century is the solution to the long-standing ‘einstein’ (one-stone) problem.

The einstein problem asks whether there is a shape that can tile an infinitely large horizontal surface so that the pattern never repeats.

Brilliant minds had searched for decades for such shapes. Then in 2022, David Smith, a retired print technician and amateur maths enthusiast, began working with software and cardboard cut-outs at his home in Bridlington, Yorkshire.

Smith had worked for years on tiling patterns and had a strong intuition his shape, nicknamed the ‘hat’, would both tile the surface and never repeat.

He didn’t have the mathematical tools to prove his hunch, however, so he turned to the community of tiling enthusiasts and got help from Prof Craig Kaplan at the University of Waterloo, Canada; Prof Chaim Goodman-Strauss from the University of Arkansas; and software engineer Dr Joseph Myers from Cambridge.

Together they came up with computer-based and analytic proofs for a whole family of shapes, and their preprint study was greeted with international acclaim in March 2023 – even though the ‘hat’ occasionally needed to be flipped over to successfully tile the plane.

But no sooner had the preprint of their work been released, than David came up with the ‘spectre’ – a chiral aperiodic monotile, which didn’t need flipping.

Even more impressive, the ‘spectre’ was a member of a larger class of such tiles that allows the straight edges to be wavy.

Again, his colleagues proved the truth of his intuition. This was a beautiful achievement, led by an extraordinary mathematical hobbyist.

8. The cure for HIV

There was a time when HIV was a death sentence. Then anti-retroviral drugs came along and prospects improved. More and more people became able to live with the disease, but a cure still seemed like a distant dream.

Then in 2007, an HIV-positive man called Timothy Ray Brown received a bone marrow transplant for his leukaemia. Chemotherapy had failed and Brown was running out of options.

His doctor, Dr Gero Hütter, thought that the treatment might be able to cure his cancer, but he also realised that if he could find a donor who was genetically resistant to HIV, there was a chance that the same treatment might also cure his HIV.

Some people are naturally HIV-resistant. They carry a mutation in a gene called CCR5, which codes for a receptor protein that HIV uses to enter host cells.

After scouring the register, Hütter found a donor who not only matched Brown’s immune profile, but also carried two copies of the mutated gene.

The transplant went ahead and a few years later, researchers could find no trace of HIV in Brown’s body. Brown came off his anti-retroviral meds and went on to live the rest of his life HIV-free.

He was the first person to be cured of HIV.

Since then, at least six more people with cancer have been cured of HIV using bone marrow transplants.

The treatment, however, is brutal, with risks so great that it’s unlikely ever to become a routine procedure, but it has taught researchers a great deal about HIV and given hope to the world that a cure for HIV will, one day, be possible.

9. Transformers and large language models

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been in the news for more than a decade, largely because one key AI technology – neural networks – finally started to work at scale.

The new AI era was heralded by the advent of ‘deep learning’ around 2005, driven by cheap computer power and plentiful data for ‘training’ neural nets.

The field exploded and we began to see a host of impressive applications. AI hit the headlines.

And then, something unexpected happened. In 2017, a Google team published a scientific paper describing a new architecture for organising neural nets – the so-called ‘transformer architecture.’

The transformer architecture is a neural network architecture for token prediction: taking as input a sequence of tokens (words) and then predicting the next token (word) to appear.

They’re trained by feeding them ordinary human text, and given a ‘prompt’ (for example: ‘a summary of Winston Churchill’s life’). They’ll then try to predict the word most likely to appear next. They do this one word at a time, but the process can be repeated over and over.

It wasn’t obvious in 2017 that transformers would be so… transformative. To realise their full power, you had to be prepared to build them on an unprecedented scale, throw mind-boggling quantities of training data at them and train them with AI supercomputers running for months.

Google didn’t make that bet; it was a little-known organisation called OpenAI, supported by Microsoft. And it paid off, spectacularly.

The first real hint that we were entering a new era was the release of GPT-3 in June 2020. Those with access to OpenAI’s new program seemed genuinely startled by how capable it was.

Just as remarkable for AI researchers was its emergent capabilities: the ability to do things that it wasn’t designed to do.

Questions, like the famous Turing Test, which had been of strictly philosophical interest previously, suddenly became practical experimental questions.

The unprecedented success of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT took Silicon Valley by surprise and now the world’s richest companies are pivoting to try to embed this remarkable new technology everywhere, in the hope that they’ll find the killer application.

For all their success, LLMs aren’t the end of the road for AI; the dream of a helpful household robot that can clear your dinner table and load the dishwasher still seems frustratingly distant.

But the technology is astonishing nonetheless. We’re living at a remarkable time in technological history: our history will be divided into pre-GPT and post-GPT.

10. HPV vaccine

At the turn of the century, scientists knew that cervical cancer was caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Of over 200 known HPV strains, two high-risk types – 16 and 18 – are responsible for over 70 per cent of cervical cancer cases.

While the UK’s cervical screening programme, launched in the 1960s, successfully reduced cervical cancer rates, a huge shift came with the introduction of the HPV vaccine.

The vaccine became part of the UK’s national programme in 2008. Today, it’s licensed in over 100 countries and offered to both girls and boys to prevent HPV-related diseases, including multiple cancers and genital warts.

In the 15 years since its introduction, the vaccine has provided excellent protection against HPV and has delivered remarkable results – an estimated 90-per-cent reduction in cervical cancer rates among women aged 20–30.

The next frontier is achieving the elimination of cervical cancer – something once thought achievable only for infectious diseases – through widespread HPV vaccination and robust screening programmes.

11. Digital contraception

Non-hormonal digital contraception has revolutionised family planning by combining data-driven insights and user-friendly technology.

Apps like Natural Cycles and Clue empower women to track their menstrual cycles and use the data to prevent or achieve pregnancy, offering a convenient and accessible alternative to traditional contraceptives.

These apps utilise algorithms that analyse patterns in body temperature, ovulation cycles and other physiological markers, providing users with real-time predictions of the fertility window in their cycle.

This innovation marks a turning point in women’s health. In 2018, Natural Cycles became the first digital contraceptive to achieve US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, elevating the app to a regulated medical intervention.

Natural Cycles reports that the algorithm behind its app has a 93-per-cent success rate, the same as the contraceptive pill. MG

12. Tissue engineering

Going to the dentist and having a synthetic resin filling is fine, but it’s not as good as a real tooth. But what if we could grow real teeth in the lab from a person’s own stem cells and implant them back into their mouth?

This sounds like science fiction, but tissue engineering is a breakthrough technology that’s already being used to grow human tissue, through ‘scaffold technology’. Scaffolds are porous materials that support stem cells as they divide and grow into new tissues.

Artificial ears, trachea (windpipes) and bone have been grown this way and successfully implanted into human patients. Because the implanted tissues are grown from a patient’s own cells, there are no problems with immune rejection.

Artificial kidneys, knee cartilage and even hearts are also being grown this way, although these are still confined to lab experiments. No one can yet put a limit on this new technology, but the successful regrowing of teeth is on the horizon.

13. Self-repairing materials

A modern smartphone contains half the elements in the periodic table and yet only has a lifespan of two to three years, on average. To save the massive amounts of energy we’re wasting on continually producing (and even recycling) phones and everything else that fills our lives, we need to find a new way of making products that last longer.

This is where the breakthrough technology of self-repairing materials comes in. Imagine a smartphone that can repair itself overnight when you plug it in.

Many different types of this technology are already on the market. Self-healing paints have room temperature fluidity, allowing them to flow back into cracks and fill the fissure when they form.

Self-repairing concrete for bridges and self-repairing asphalt for roads have already been deployed this century. Self-repairing electronics are coming to help us build a sustainable future.

14. Universal programmable chemical robots

What if any chemical reaction could be performed through code? This is what has become possible with the ground-breaking advancement known as chemical computation, or ‘chemputation’.

Chemputation combines automation, computation and modular hardware to transform chemical synthesis into a programmable, universal process. At its core is the ‘chemputer’ – a revolutionary platform capable of executing any feasible chemical synthesis.

It uses a concept known as ‘chempiling’, which translates chemical synthesis pathways into executable hardware configurations – basically acting as a chemical Turing machine. This process digitalises chemistry, increasing efficiency, accelerating research and reducing the risk of human error.

The integration of artificial intelligence into automated synthesis takes this innovation further, enhancing decision-making at every step of the process, from molecule design to reaction execution.

Because of this, chemputation is unlocking immense potential in drug discovery, material science and more.

15. Dark matter

The majority of the Universe is unseen, composed of two entities called dark matter and dark energy, and physics is currently unable to explain the origin of either.

Over the last 25 years, evidence for the existence of dark matter has become more compelling. Using gravitational effects to deduce where and how much of it there is, we’ve created maps that reveal a pervasive and invisible web.

The patterns seen in these maps, in the cosmic microwave background and in the distribution of galaxies, almost match our expectations for a dark Universe. But while 25 years of looking up has increased astronomers’ confidence, experimentation tells a different story.

After CERN’s 2012 detection of the Higgs boson, there were high hopes that the theoretical ‘lightest supersymmetric particle’ and favourite candidate for dark matter, would be discovered next.

Sadly, the elusive dark matter particle has yet to be found. The lack of detection means that we know what it’s not, even if we don’t yet know what it is. Scientists are working to build the most advanced detector yet, potentially in the UK.

Combined with upgrades at CERN and upcoming observations from the Euclid telescope and Vera Rubin Observatory, the hope is very much alive that it won’t be another 25 years before we understand the dark matter side of the Universe.

16. The Higgs boson particle

If we were to compare the most important discoveries in physics in the first quarter of the 21st century with those of the same period in the 20th, we might feel quite disheartened by the recent paucity of fundamental advances.

Maybe this is because we have largely uncovered the basic laws of the Universe.

It’s certainly hard to deny that those first two or three decades of the previous century were a golden age of physics, from the quantum revolution to Einstein’s two theories of relativity, to the structure of the atom with Ernest Rutherford.

But the theories and experimental discoveries over the past hundred years have still been remarkable, leading to deep insight into the fundamental building blocks of matter, potentially getting us closer to completing the jigsaw puzzle of reality.

One piece of the puzzle that had been missing ever since it was first proposed in the 1960s by Prof Peter Higgs (and others), was the Higgs boson. The particle was proposed as a manifestation of the Higgs field and the Higgs mechanism, explaining how elementary particles acquire mass.

Then, on 4 July 2012, experimental teams working with two giant particle detectors, ATLAS and CMS, at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, announced they had finally observed the Higgs.

It was a landmark achievement in particle physics and a testament to technological innovation in ‘big science’, international collaboration and the human pursuit of knowledge.

It commanded global attention and captivated the wider public.

One might, of course, argue that the discovery of the Higgs wasn’t as profound as, say, the accelerating expansion of the Universe in 1998 (which therefore just misses out on this list), because physicists expected to find the Higgs. But it confirmed a critical component of the Standard Model of particle physics.

The Standard Model is an amalgamation of two separate quantum theories – the electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics – which together describe the properties of all the known elementary particles and the forces acting between them.

Yet the Standard Model can’t be the final word because it doesn’t include gravity, doesn’t explain dark matter or dark energy, or where all the antimatter that should have been created at the Big Bang has gone.

Fifteen months after the discovery of the Higgs, in October 2013, the Physics Nobel Prize was awarded jointly to Prof François Englert and Prof Peter Higgs, “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles…”

It was awarded not for the experimental confirmation of the Higgs’ existence, but for the original theoretical prediction half a century earlier.

17. The James Webb Space Telescope

Launched aboard an Ariane-5 rocket on Christmas Day 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is nothing short of a technological marvel. Augmenting and improving on the role established by the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST is designed for infrared astronomy in the wavelength range of 0.6-28.5 microns.

The JWST targets many important areas of astronomy and cosmology, from studying the first stars and initial galaxy formation, to spotting exoplanets and analysing their atmospheres.

A technologically and financially ambitious project, it hit many snags along the way to final deployment. The JWST’s large primary mirror was too large to be carried inside the rocket’s payload bay, for one.

The problem was solved by designing the mirror so that it could fold up for transit and open like the petals of a flower at its destination. That destination needed to be far from any bright radiation sources, such as Earth and the Moon, for JWST’s extremely sensitive infrared detectors to work.

Consequently, its base observation site is located 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, on the opposite side to the Sun. Fortunately, upon its arrival, JWST deployed without incident, which is just as well, because being so distant, there’s little we could have done to fix any problems.

In December 2022, JWST discovered the most distant, and therefore earliest, galaxies ever observed.

A galaxy survey project called JWST’s Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey looked at an area where Hubble had recorded 10,000 galaxies, and detected a mind-blowing 100,000 galaxies in the same patch of sky.

It’s not just unfathomably distant objects that have had the JWST treatment, though. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have all come under JWST’s scrutiny, and spectacular new details about each world have been revealed as a result.

As time goes on, JWST continues to break new ground and its observations are challenging existing theories about object evolution, posing many more questions along the way.

18. Exoplanets

It makes the night sky far more interesting if we think of every star as being at the centre of a system of planets, like in our Solar System. Of special interest is the possibility that many of those planets are like Earth: the same size and at a distance to their parent star that allows water to exist. Could there be life on them?

Though they were officially discovered in about 1995, most of what we know about exoplanets has come in the last few years.

We’ve now detected over 5,000 of them, mainly with the ‘transit method.’ This is where you don’t actually detect any light from the planets, but the effects on the brightness of a parent star when a planet passes in front of it.

The most successful way we’ve carried out the transit method is by looking through the Kepler Space Telescope. Though the telescope has revealed a lot, it doesn’t tell us about what the surfaces of these planets are like.

For that, you’ve got to detect some light reflected from the planet. That’s much harder and, so far, has only been done for really big planets, not Earth-sized ones. The challenge for the coming 25 years is going to be detecting the light from the Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope may do some of this, but a giant ground-based telescope – the Extremely Large Telescope – is being built by a consortium of European countries in Chile. Its mirror is 39m (128ft) across, so it could collect a lot more light from faint objects than the Webb telescope, which is ‘only’ 6.6m (21ft) across.

There’s so much this new area of study could show us. I think if I were talking to a young person embarking on an astronomical career, I would advise focusing on exoplanets. The field is clearly going to be expanding and full of a high rate of discoveries in the coming decades.

19. Gravitational waves

Gravitational waves are significant for two reasons. Firstly, they’re an important physical phenomenon that tells us about the nature of gravity, confirming a further consequence of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Secondly, detecting them has been an amazing technical achievement.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was a huge technical challenge because the expected amplitude of these waves is very small and must be detected at a vast distance. The effect you’re looking for is like the thickness of a hair at the distance of a nearby star. Quite amazing.

Many of us thought that LIGO wouldn’t find anything. Or, if it did, events would be fantastically rare, the instruments only being sensitive enough to detect collisions once a century or so.

But LIGO has been more successful than any of us expected, detecting a pair of black holes about 50 times the mass of the Sun crashing together within a short time of being switched on.

It was amazingly exciting and it’s now detecting about one or two such events a week. It’s worth celebrating for the hundreds of people who were involved with the set-up of these instruments.

The gravitational waves that LIGO observes are a short pulse of radiation of about 100 cycles per second, which is roughly the orbital period of two 50 solar-mass black holes when they merge together.

But there are far bigger black holes in the centres of galaxies with masses millions of times higher than LIGO can detect. Mergers of these are much rarer, but can be detectable out to greater distances.

The radiation produced, however, is at a much lower frequency. This has to be detected by instruments that, instead of having mirrors a few kilometres apart, has mirrors a few million kilometres apart.

20. Psychedelic therapy

After much deliberation and campaigning from various interested parties, 2024 saw the United States Food and Drug Administration opt not to approve official use of MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, citing insufficient evidence of the drug’s (commonly known as ecstasy) efficacy.

Despite this setback, it’s important to appreciate what a substantial breakthrough it is that we’ve even got to this point. While the benefits of psychedelics have a long history, the previous high-watermark of realising their potential therapeutic applications was in the 1950s and 1960s, when LSD use was widespread.

Unfortunately, a combination of LSD’s association with counterculture and President Richard Nixon’s ‘War on Drugs’, resulted in LSD – and psychedelics in general – falling victim to the brutal backlash. Their use was suppressed, both recreationally and in research contexts, for decades.

The loosening of the restrictions on research into psychedelics in the 21st century has produced potent and fast-acting treatments for depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders, addiction and even sexual disorders.

It’s still early days for psychedelic therapies. Much of the research remains small-scale and short term, political and ideological barriers remain, and a mainstream rollout of psychedelic therapy would require significant investment.

Even so, especially with the relative stagnation in ‘traditional’ pharmacological interventions for mental health issues, this growing reassessment of the safety, potency and benefits of psychedelics could prove world-changing.

21. Single-cell genomics

The human body is made up of almost 40 trillion cells and conventional wisdom suggests these are divided into about 200 cell types. Before the advent of single-cell genomics, our technologies studied cells in bulk, providing an average readout for thousands of cells without resolution of the individual cell identities.

In the human body, as in all multicellular organisms, there are different cell types within the same tissue that have distinct roles: muscle tissue contains subtypes of muscle cells, but also blood vessels, neurons, immune cells and more.

Without understanding this complexity, it’s impossible to determine how subpopulations of cells in different organs relate to each other and how they might be altered by disease.

In cancer, the DNA of a single cell mutates to allow it to multiply without control, leading to the formation of tumours. The tumour cells then interact with other cells in the microenvironment leading to the spread of the cancer.

Single-cell genomics has the power to resolve the individual cell types and cell states, revealing the pathways that promote tumour growth, allowing for the development of targeted therapy.

Another example is Crohn’s disease, where the comparison of healthy and diseased tissue at the single-cell level revealed the reason for a lack of response to therapy in some patients.

During the pandemic, single-cell genomics was used to determine which cells are susceptible to infection and later studies determined which organs are most affected and why. These are just a few of the applications of single-cell genomics and the list is expanding all the time.

More than 3,000 scientists around the globe are making a Human Cell Atlas (HCA) to provide a complete single-cell map of all the organs of the human body. This initiative has already led to a paradigm shift in the understanding of the function of normal cells and forms the basis for the understanding of the mechanisms leading to diseases.

The progress being made is leading to better diagnosis and treatment.

It has been less than a decade since single-cell analysis was developed and only six years since the HCA was launched. The next decade of single-cell genomics promises to be an even more exciting one.

22. CT scanning

A little over a century ago, palaeontologists in New York cut open the skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex, so they could see inside its brain cavity. It was a bold thing to do, as they had to destroy some of the priceless fossil. But they decided it was worth it, as it was the only way they could try to understand how this most iconic of dinosaurian beasts sensed its world.

Fast-forward to the turn of the millennium, when new technology rendered these destructive fossil surgeries obsolete.

In 2000, Prof Christopher Brochu published a scintillating study on the brain, intelligence and senses of T. rex. He didn’t use a saw; he used X-rays. Brochu put a fossil T. rex skull into a computed tomography (CT) scanner.

As the skull was the size of a bathtub, he needed to persuade engineers at Boeing to give him access to the machines they used to scan aeroplane engines to look for imperfections. Although huge, the scanner worked like one a doctor would use at a hospital, using a series of X-rays to build a three-dimensional digital model of the stuff inside the skull.

It revealed that T. rex had a big brain with enormous olfactory bulbs, which graced this iconic predator with a sharp sense of smell. Brochu’s study wasn’t the first CT scan of a fossil, but it made worldwide headlines and sparked a torrent of new research.

Suddenly everyone was putting their fossils in CT scanners. Today the procedure is so routine that many palaeontologists have scanners in their labs.

We use them for so many things: to identify hidden bits of fossils still encased in rock, or describe the microtexture and growth marks inside bones to understand how ancient organisms grew and metabolised. They can also help to make digital models that we can subject to computer simulations, testing how dinosaurs fed and moved.

To me, CT scanning is the biggest breakthrough in palaeontology over the last 25 years.

23. NASA’s Curiosity Rover

In the kind of PR masterpiece we’ve come to expect from NASA, they didn’t play down the difficulty of landing their Curiosity rover on Mars. Instead, they called it their “seven minutes of terror” and explained that in those 420 seconds, it had to go from a speed of close to 21,000km/h (13,000mph) to zero in order to land safely on the planet’s surface.

When they achieved that, the mission’s place in history was all but secured, especially since they had used an innovative ‘sky crane’ landing system, which guided the rover to a much more precise landing than any previous planetary mission.

Then came the science.

Since 2012, Curiosity has made ground-breaking discoveries on Mars that help paint a more detailed picture of the planet’s past environment, its previous habitability and even its present ability to support life.

It found chemicals and minerals in Gale Crater that indicated the past presence of liquid water, clearly a pre-requisite for life. It then found various organic molecules that serve as the building blocks for life and can be used as food by microbial organisms.

While they don’t prove that life existed on the planet, they at least show that the correct molecules were present.

But perhaps the rover’s most tantalising discovery has been the detection of a seasonal release of methane from beneath the planet’s surface. Every Martian summer, the gas has welled up from Gale Crater.

While water-rock interactions could be responsible, scientists can’t rule out biological activity. The next generation of Mars rovers, such as ESA’s Rosalind Franklin will carry subsurface drills to investigate further.

Put together, Curiosity’s longevity and its extraordinary scientific results significantly enhance our understanding of Mars, paving the way for future human missions and the search for extraterrestrial life.

To seal its place in 21st-century culture, Curiosity also took a selfie.

24. NASA’s DART mission

This entry made one of the biggest impacts both figuratively and literally. On 26 September 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos.

The collision destroyed the spacecraft completely and shifted the orbit of the asteroid – all on purpose. DART was a ground-breaking test of our ability to alter the orbit of a small asteroid, should we detect one on a collision course with Earth – and it succeeded spectacularly.

For the first time in history, humankind changed the trajectory of a celestial object and in so doing, proved a method for averting a natural disaster.

The asteroid in question was the smaller component of a double asteroid. The larger of the two is called Didymos. Originally discovered in 1996, Didymos is a chunk of rock with dimensions of roughly 851 x 848 x 620m (2,792 x 2,782 x 2,034ft).

Its companion, eventually named Dimorphos, was confirmed in 2003. With a dimension of just 177 x 174 x 116m (580 x 570 x 38ft), it was the perfect test subject for the mission.

Being locked into orbit around Didymos meant that the amount by which it had been moved would show up in a change of the time it took to circle the larger asteroid.

Before the impact, Dimorphos took just under 12 hours to orbit Didymos. After the impact, this time had decreased by just over half an hour, showcasing a viable method for deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids from Earth.

DART’s accomplishments extend beyond planetary defence, though.

The mission has provided critical data on asteroid composition and impact mechanics, not to mention celestial navigation by hitting a 100m-wide (328ft) target at speeds of kilometres per second while having travelled millions of kilometres from Earth.

25. SpaceX’s reusable rockets

For decades, the biggest roadblock to the exploration and utilisation of space has been the cost of launching objects and people into space.

The enormous Saturn V, used to transport astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, achieved a cost of around $5,000 (about £3,950) per kilogram lofted into space, but since the 1990s, smaller disposable rockets have only managed to achieve costs of around $10,000 (approx £7,900) per kilogram.

SpaceX has blown that figure out of the water and is currently in the process of revolutionising spaceflight. The game changer was the introduction of the Falcon 9 reusable rocket in 2015.

With a first stage booster that could return to Earth and land upright, the cost of launching people, supplies and technology into space started to tumble.

The reusability enabled more frequent launches, again expanding the range of commercial and scientific opportunities that space could offer. For example, it has made SpaceX’s Starlink project viable. This endeavour aims to fly thousands of smaller satellites in low-Earth orbit to provide unbreakable global internet coverage.

With Falcon 9, the cost of reaching orbit is around $2,000 (£1,500) per kilogram. The giant Starship rocket that SpaceX is now test-flying is estimated to slash the cost to an extraordinary $200 (£158) per kilogram.

SpaceX’s achievements have reshaped the global aerospace industry and mark a pivotal step toward humankind permanently extending its presence throughout the Solar System. But such progress doesn’t come without a cost.

The ability to launch so much into space threatens to dramatically increase the amount of space debris, which imperils working satellites and interferes with astronomical observations of the night sky.

Hence the innovation that these rockets allow must be understood in relation to the ‘environmental damage’ that it could bring to Earth’s orbits and the night sky in general.

Nevertheless, SpaceX has brought us to a true watershed, not just in science but human history.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/experts-pick-the-25-most-significant-breakthroughs-of-the-21st-century?utm_source=recommendedreads.com

Source: Extreme Tech, Jon Martindale
Photo: Inventwood

This could someday be used to strengthen furniture and even replace some conventional building materials.

After years of development, an ultra-strong, wood-based material is commercially available for the first time. The creators of the chemically treated and compacted wood product claim it can be up to 20 times stronger than traditional wood and stronger than many conventional metal and alloy materials, including steel.

Liangbing Hu, a material scientist and the founder of Maryland-based InventWood, developed the substance, called “Superwood.” He’s previously developed unique wood materials, such as a transparent wood product. But it’s strength that the company has been working on in recent years, and now, it has a viable product to bring to market.

Superwood is made through a soaking and compression system that makes the wood significantly denser. The process takes around a week to complete, but the resulting product is stronger and lighter than many conventional materials.

“From a chemical and a practical standpoint, it’s wood,” explained InventWood CEO Alex Lau (via CNN). “It looks just like wood, and when you test it, it behaves like wood,” Lau added, “except it’s much stronger and better than wood in pretty much every aspect that we’ve tested.”

The first products for Superwood will be outdoor construction-based, such as decking and cladding. But as the company scales up production, it plans to offer internal materials like wall panelling and eventually construction materials. One early idea for its use was to replace metal components in furniture, which could help reduce their weight and cost and give them greater longevity by preventing sagging.

Other grander suggestions include building entire buildings out of Superwood. Hu claimed these would be up to four times lighter than conventional buildings. Superwood also requires up to 90% less carbon to produce than steel, so it has the potential to be environmentally friendly, too.

https://www.extremetech.com/science/new-superwood-material-is-stronger-than-steel

Source: Fast Company, Chris Morris
Photo: Courtesy of Tin Can

From retro fun to safer conversations, old-school home phones are helping families rethink how children connect with friends.

In today’s world, communication is largely done through one of two methods: smartphones or social media. Young children, however, rarely have access to either—and experts say they shouldn’t have any access at all until age 13 or later.

That leaves many parents as the gatekeepers of their children’s social lives, long past the days of mommy-and-me classes and playdates. But an old-school solution is giving kids more independence: the landline.

Once considered obsolete (AT&T even tried to stop servicing them in California last year), the home phone is making a comeback. Seattle-based Tin Can is hoping to lead the revival with a redesigned corded phone that lets kids call their friends and arrange get-togethers—without involving parents and without the distractions or dangers of a smartphone, such as texting, cameras, or internet access.

The idea for Tin Can came when founder Chet Kittleson was talking with other parents of elementary school-aged children at a park. “Every single person around the circle was like, ‘I totally forgot that the landline was how I operated as a kid.’ We remember it as a utility for an adult and forget that the kids are a massive beneficiary of it,” he told Seattle’s Child.

Tin Can phones, which retail for $75, are modeled after a familiar 1980s design. Since few households maintain a dedicated phone line, they run on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and plug into a router or in-home ethernet port. (A Wi-Fi-enabled version is in the works.) Because they’re corded, kids can’t wander too far, and parents can control when the phone is available through the Tin Can app.

Instead of traditional phone numbers, each Tin Can has a unique five-digit code that kids use to call one another. There are no monthly fees. A forthcoming upgrade will allow calls to standard phone numbers (and emergency services) for $10 per month.

Kittleson isn’t the only parent rediscovering landlines. In March, Oregon mom Britteny Mast shared on Instagram that she had installed a “home phone” for her kids. The post has received more than 137,000 likes, with dozens of parents saying they had done the same.

Mast and her husband realized their children were so used to FaceTime that they didn’t know how to carry a regular phone conversation. They also wanted them to be able to call family members without borrowing a parent’s smartphone.

“My husband and I decided to just default to what we did growing up, and get a home phone. So far the kids think it’s awesome, and they love calling Grammy all on their own,” she wrote.

Of course, landlines come with risks. More than half of all calls to them are from scammers, who often target seniors, the demographic most likely to still have a home phone. Parents today, just like those in the 1980s, need to teach kids not to answer unfamiliar numbers.

What some parents are most surprised about, though, isn’t that their younger kids love the landline. Their older kids might as well.

Landlines scratch the same retro itch as cassette tapes. For Gen Z, they’re a screen-free alternative that encourages conversation without emojis and builds deeper bonds. Plus, the cord is still fun to twirl.

That said, the smartphone is in no danger of being overwhelmed. The most recent study from the National Center for Health Statistics found that in the second half of 2024, 78.7% of adults lived in households that did not have a landline. (Homeowners were more than twice as likely to have one.)

At the end of 2014, that number was just 44.2%.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91388347/landline-phones-kids-connecting-with-friends?utm_source=newsletters

Source: ZDNet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor
Photo: Shine Turbine

Solar generators are popular – but what happens when it’s cloudy? This gadget keeps the power flowing no matter the weather.

A Shine Turbine kit, which includes a turbine, stand, guy lines, and pegs, costs $399, while the Essentials Kit, which adds a few more bits such as a wind speed meter, costs $488 — though both are on sale right now

The kit includes everything you need to turn wind into electrical energy, and the turbine features a 12,000 mAh battery

There are limitations, which include the weight of the kit and the limited power it generates, 40 Watts.
View now at Shineturbine

The Shine Turbine is on sale for $280, a $120 savings off its $400 retail price. You can also get the Shine Essentials kit at $147 off, on sale for only $342.

I cover a lot of solar generators here, and they are all the rage. I’ve tested dozens of devices over the past few years and seen the technology go from strength to strength.

But I often get asked, “What happens when the clouds roll in and the sun vanishes?” Living in the UK, the sun can be in short supply for much of the year.

This is when you turn your attention from solar to wind power. And there’s one company that makes portable wind turbines perfect for charging your smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices: Shine Turbine.

The Shine Turbine kit comes with everything you need — the turbine, a stand, guy lines, pegs, and cables. Setting up the first few times took a bit longer than I expected, especially if you’re trying to do it while it’s blowing a gale. But as with most things, it does get easier with practice.

There’s also a knack to setting the guy lines out effectively, which took me a while to figure out — a process that would have been a lot faster had I read the manual — because I found the setup all shaky the first few times. But once you get it figured out, it’s very robust.

Once set up, you have options. You can let the turbine charge up the internal battery and then use that to charge your devices, or you can attach a power bank to the turbine. Your choice depends on how you’re using the setup. Using the entire turbine as a big power bank makes sense for odd top-ups on the move, but in a base camp setting, it’s better to charge separate power banks and use those, keeping the reserve in the turbine for backup on still days.

I’ve found the Shine Turbine to be quite effective, but there are limitations. First, the 40-watt output is a low amount of power if you’re used to having 100- or 200-watt solar panels at your disposal. The Shine is ideal for smartphones, tablets, drones, and cameras, but laptops and other bigger devices are off the cards.

Setup is also rather time-consuming. I’m used to being able to throw solar panels out for my power stations in seconds. The best I got the setup time for the Shine Turbine was about ten minutes. Also, taking the turbine down involves carefully packing the guy lines away so as not to make the next setup a painful one.

But despite the downsides, the Shine Turbine is a great way to harvest power from Mother Nature when you are away from an AC outlet.

ZDNET’s buying advice

If you need power and can’t rely on the sun, the Shine Turbine really shines. Yes, it’s weighty, yes, setup takes some time, and yes, the power output from it is rather limited, but I’ve used a single turbine to keep my iPhone and a drone powered on a multi-day trip where a power station and solar panels weren’t an option.

Starting at $399, the price is what it is — if you want power on the move, it’s a price worth paying because you’re getting the best portable wind turbines on the market and a package that will accompany you on many adventures.

Shine Turbine tech specs

Power rating: 40 watts
Internal battery: 3.7 V, 12,000 mAh
Connector: Regulated 5 V DC, 2.6 A
Charge ports: USB Standard-A, USB Micro-B
Folded length: 35 cm / 13 3/4 in
Folded width: 10 cm / 4 in
Rotor diameter: 60 cm / 23 5/8 in
Mount height: 91.4 cm / 3 ft
Total weight: 3 lbs / 1.3 kg
Protections: Over-voltage, under-voltage, under-temperature, over-temperature, overload and transient

When will this deal expire?

While many sales events feature deals for a specific length of time, deals are on a limited-time basis, making them subject to expire anytime. ZDNET remains committed to finding, sharing, and updating the best offers to help you maximize your savings so you can feel as confident in your purchases as we feel in our recommendations. Our ZDNET team of experts constantly monitors the deals we feature to keep our stories up-to-date. If you missed out on this deal, don’t worry — we’re always sourcing new savings opportunities at ZDNET.com.

https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/energy/can-wind-power-generators-replace-my-home-solar-panels-my-verdict-after-months-of-testing

Source: Epoch Times, Michael Wing
Photo: Courtesy of Go Below Underground Adventures

A blissfully cool 10 degrees Celsius is the perfect temperature for scrambling down an old mine shaft vigorously and then sailing across the longest underground zipline in the world—so says Go Below Underground Adventures operations manager Mike Morris, from Wales.

Several days a week, he clips onto a safety wire and makes the 1,375-foot descent below the surface in an abandoned slate mine near Lake Level where he brings guests to stay in the world’s deepest underground hotel suites—which are all comfortably well-heated.

“Even on a freezing cold day, it’s still going to be 10 degrees [50 degrees Fahrenheit] down there,” Mr. Morris, 33, told The Epoch Times, speaking of the subterranean property of thermal inertia. “And if it’s on a boiling hot day, it’s still 10 to 12 degrees, which is quite a pleasant temperature, maybe a little bit chilly.”

The mine is in the tiny Welsh village of Tanygrisiau, near the quiet, rustic town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, also known as the slate capital of the world. If the chalkboards at your old elementary school did not come from here, your neighbor’s slate roof might well have.

The first heavy equipment began operating here around 1860. Since then, the mine, called Cwmorthin, was quarried by a succession of slate companies up until the early 1990s when operations came to an end. The adventure company then took over the lease.

Today, you can still find antique tins and pieces of china pottery—the Welsh miners downed copious amounts of tea—left scattered throughout the mine. Spelunking enthusiasts like Mr. Morris and his colleagues are now passionate about this history—and about sharing it with visitors.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bright/the-worlds-deepest-hotel-is-inside-abandoned-slate-mine-and-its-a-jaw-dropping-1400-feet-under

Source: Studyfinds.org
Photo: Conceptual image of a man walking on the street with his smartphone being charged by his hoodie. (AI-generated image created by StudyFinds)

In a nutshell

Scientists finally cracked the code on making fabric that can generate electricity from body heat by creating a special polymer coating for silk that stays stable for over a year—previously, similar materials would degrade within days when exposed to air.

This isn’t just lab-perfect technology—the coated silk yarn can survive through seven rounds in the washing machine while still keeping most of its electrical properties, and it can stretch quite a bit without breaking.

While we’re not charging smartphones with our t-shirts just yet (the power output is still very low), this breakthrough could realistically power small sensors embedded in clothing, like health monitors that wouldn’t need battery changes or charging.

Forget to bring your charger with you on vacation? What if your clothing could generate electricity from the heat your body naturally produces? This futuristic concept is now approaching reality thanks to scientists at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and Linköping University.

Researchers say the remarkable new textile technology converts body heat into electricity through thermoelectric effects, potentially powering wearable devices from your clothing. The innovation, described in an Advanced Science paper, centers on a newly developed polymer called poly(benzodifurandione), or PBFDO, which serves as a coating for ordinary silk yarn.

“The polymers that we use are bendable, lightweight and are easy to use in both liquid and solid form. They are also non-toxic,” says study first author Mariavittoria Craighero, a doctoral student at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers, in a statement.

Unlike previous attempts at creating thermoelectric textiles, this breakthrough addresses a critical barrier that has long hampered progress: the lack of air-stable n-type polymers. These materials are characterized by their ability to move negative charges and are essential counterparts to the more common p-type polymers in creating efficient thermoelectric devices.

“We found the missing piece of the puzzle to make an optimal thread – a type of polymer that had recently been discovered. It has outstanding performance stability in contact with air, while at the same time having a very good ability to conduct electricity. By using polymers, we don’t need any rare earth metals, which are common in electronics,” explains Craighero.

How Thermoelectric Textiles Work

Thermoelectric generators work by converting temperature differences into electrical energy. When one side of a thermoelectric material is warmer than the other, electrons move from the hot side to the cold side, generating an electrical current. The human body continuously generates heat, creating natural temperature gradients between the skin and the surrounding environment.

For efficient thermoelectric generation, both p-type (positive) and n-type (negative) materials must work together. While p-type materials have been well-established in previous research, creating stable n-type materials has been a persistent challenge. Most n-type organic materials degrade rapidly when exposed to oxygen in the air, often becoming ineffective within days.

What makes this development particularly exciting is the remarkable stability of PBFDO-coated silk. Unlike similar materials that degrade within days when exposed to air, these new thermoelectric yarns maintain their performance for over 14 months under normal conditions without any protective coating. The researchers project a half-life of 3.2 years for these materials – an unprecedented achievement for this type of organic conductor.

Beyond electrical performance, the mechanical properties of the PBFDO-coated silk are equally impressive. The coated yarn can stretch up to 14% before breaking and, more importantly for everyday use, it can withstand machine washing.

“After seven washes, the thread retained two-thirds of its conducting properties. This is a very good result, although it needs to be improved significantly before it becomes commercially interesting,” states Craighero.

The material also demonstrates remarkable temperature resilience. During testing, the researchers found that PBFDO remains flexible even when cooled with liquid nitrogen to extremely low temperatures. This exceptional mechanical stability allows the material to withstand various environmental conditions and physical stresses that would be encountered in real-world use.

The Future of Daily Wear?

To showcase the technology’s potential, the research team created two different thermoelectric textile devices: a thermoelectric button and a larger textile generator with multiple thermoelectric legs.

The thermoelectric button demonstrated an output of about 6 millivolts at a temperature difference of 30 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the larger textile generator achieved an open-circuit voltage of 17 millivolts at a temperature difference of 70 degrees Celsius.

With a voltage converter, this could help power ultra-low-energy devices, such as certain types of sensors. However, the current power output—0.67 microWatts at a 70-degree temperature difference—is far below what would be required for USB charging of standard electronics.

While these power outputs mark a major step forward in thermoelectric textiles, it’s important to note that the temperature differences used in lab tests—up to 70 degrees Celsius—are significantly higher than what would typically be experienced in everyday clothing. This means real-world performance may be lower than laboratory results suggest.

Potential Uses in Healthcare and Wearable Tech

Despite current limitations in power output, the technology shows particular promise for healthcare applications. Small sensors that monitor vital signs like heart rate, body temperature, or movement patterns could potentially operate using this technology, eliminating the need for battery changes or recharging.

For patients with chronic conditions requiring continuous monitoring, self-powered sensors embedded in clothing could provide valuable data without the hassle of managing battery life. Similarly, fitness enthusiasts could benefit from wearables that never need charging, seamlessly tracking performance metrics during activities.

Beyond health monitoring, the technology could eventually support other low-power functions in smart clothing, such as environmental sensing, location tracking, or simple LED indicators. As power conversion efficiency improves, applications could expand to include more power-hungry features.

The Challenges Ahead

Currently, the production process is time-intensive and not suitable for commercial manufacturing, with the demonstrated fabric requiring four days of manual needlework to produce.

“We have now shown that it is possible to produce conductive organic materials that can meet the functions and properties that these textiles require. This is an important step forward. There are fantastic opportunities in thermoelectric textiles and this research can be of great benefit to society,” says Christian Müller, Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology and research leader of the study.

One key challenge identified through computer simulations is the electrical contact resistance between components. Reducing this resistance could potentially increase power output by three times or more. The researchers also investigated how factors like thermoelectric leg length and thread count affect performance, providing valuable insights for future designs.

Interest in these types of conducting polymers has grown significantly in recent years. They have a chemical structure that allows them to conduct electricity similar to silicon while maintaining the physical properties of plastic materials, making them flexible. Research on conducting polymers is ongoing in many areas such as solar cells, Internet of Things devices, augmented reality, robotics, and various types of portable electronics.

Looking Forward

What’s clear is that there is a viable pathway toward practical thermoelectric textiles that can function reliably in everyday conditions. By addressing both the electrical and mechanical requirements for textile integration, this work bridges the gap between laboratory demonstrations and potential real-world applications.

The development of these polymers also aligns with sustainability goals by eliminating the need for rare earth metals commonly used in electronics. With further refinement and scaling of the manufacturing process, this technology could eventually lead to clothing that powers our devices using nothing but our body heat.

For widespread adoption, researchers will need to develop automated production methods that can efficiently coat and assemble the thermoelectric textiles at scale. Additionally, improving power output while maintaining stability remains a critical goal for future research.

Methodology

The researchers coated ordinary silk thread with PBFDO polymer by dipping it into a specially formulated ink and drying it multiple times. They constructed two test devices: a button sewn onto wool fabric and a larger generator with 16 thermoelectric legs sewn through felt wool. Performance was measured by placing these devices between surfaces of different temperatures and recording the electricity generated.

Results

The PBFDO-coated silk achieved impressive stability, maintaining conductivity for over 14 months in normal conditions with a projected half-life of 3.2 years. It withstood stretching up to 14% and survived seven machine washings while retaining two-thirds of its conductivity. The larger textile generator produced 0.67 microwatts at a 70K temperature difference, while computer simulations suggested that optimizing electrical contacts could significantly boost performance.

Limitations

Power output remains low, suitable only for very low-power devices. Lab testing used temperature differences (up to 70K) much higher than typical real-world conditions, meaning actual performance would likely be lower. Production is currently time-intensive, requiring four days of manual work for a single demonstration piece. While stability is impressive compared to other similar materials, some degradation still occurs over time, particularly after washing.

Discussion and Takeaways

This research represents a breakthrough in creating stable n-type materials for thermoelectric textiles, potentially enabling practical applications in wearable technology. The work provides valuable insights for optimizing future designs, particularly regarding electrical contact resistance. By eliminating the need for rare earth metals, these organic materials also support sustainability goals. While commercial products are still years away, this development represents a significant step toward self-powered electronic textiles.

Funding and Disclosures

The research was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program (Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the European Research Council, the Swedish Research Council, and Linköping University. Author Simone Fabiano is disclosed as a co-founder and chief scientific officer of n-ink, a company with potential interests in the technology.

Publication Information

Published in Advanced Science (2024) as “Poly(benzodifurandione) Coated Silk Yarn for Thermoelectric Textiles” by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Linköping University, and Chung-Ang University. Available as an open-access paper under Creative Commons Attribution License.

https://studyfinds.org/your-clothes-could-soon-charge-your-phone-new-thermoelectric-yarn

Source: Dezeen, Saudatu Bah
Photo: Courtesy of LeafyPod

Technology brand LeafyPod has unveiled an AI-powered smart planter at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Made from durable plastic materials, the LeafyPod aims to address what the brand identifies as the four main causes of plant death: soil moisture, light, temperature, and humidity.

“The materials were chosen specifically for their resistance to water exposure and ability to maintain structural integrity over time”, Cleo Song, co-founder of LeafyPod, told Dezeen.

The device has sensors that detect light, humidity, and temperature and relay the data to the LeafyPod app.

“Our AI-powered watering system automatically adapts to each plant’s specific needs by monitoring environmental conditions and adjusting the watering schedule accordingly, ensuring optimal care regardless of the plant variety”, Song said.

The LeafyPod app works alongside the plant, learning its routine over time and automatically adjusting the watering schedule for optimised care.

“The planter’s clean, minimalistic design in classic white conceals its sophisticated technology – including multiple environmental sensors and watering systems”, Song continued.

Users can recharge the device, while a built-in water reservoir ensures the plants stay hydrated, even during extended trips.

“The app sends timely notifications for all maintenance needs, from water refills to filter cleaning or replacement”, Song said.

“The cordless design with USB charging capability further simplifies the user experience”.

The gadget can be voice-controlled by integrating it with smart devices like Alexa and Google Assistant.

The device features a dual-filter system, with a reusable filter on the pump that can be cleaned and a replaceable filter at the bottom of the transparent inner pot.

The LeafyPod also has an adaptive watering system that adjusts based on plant type and real-time environmental data.

“We designed the water tank to require refilling only once every two weeks to a month, optimizing water usage while maintaining plant health”, Song said.

“The system’s AI-driven approach helps prevent both overwatering and under-watering by continuously monitoring soil conditions and adjusting water delivery accordingly.”

Other devices showcased at this year’s CES fair include the Hormometer hormone testing kit and a solar-powered car.

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/01/17/leafypod-unveils-ai-powered-self-watering-smart-planter-at-ces

Source: Fast Company, Elizabeth Segran
Photo: Ahmet Kusakog/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Estée Lauder Companies, which owns Le Labo and Jo Malone London, is partnering with a startup called Exuud that prevents your nose from getting desensitized.

We’re in a golden age of home fragrance. Everywhere you go, from Sephora to Whole Foods, you’ll find candles, diffusers, and plug-ins, all designed to fill rooms with irresistible scents.

There’s only one problem: Humans have evolved to stop perceiving scents after a short period to prevent overstimulation, a condition known as olfactory blindness. “It happens in seconds,” says Pam Dalton, an olfactory scholar at Monell Chemical Senses Center. “Our brain is optimized to detect changes in scent rather than continuous scents to help us respond to dangers like, for instance, gas leaks.”

Estée Lauder Companies—the $15.6 billion beauty conglomerate that owns fragrance brands like Jo Malone London, Le Labo, and Kilian—has just invested in a new technology called Exuud that promises to change the way we experience scents at home. Exuud has developed a new way to control the concentration of aromatic molecules in a given environment, and by modulating its intensity, it believes it can prevent our noses from getting desensitized. Estée Lauder Companies believes this technology could be a game-changer, giving it a leg up in the $24 billion global home fragrance market.

The Pandemic Fragrance Boom

When Estée Lauder founded her eponymous brand nearly eight decades ago, she believed that luxury fragrance could become a big business. Back then, women tended to rely on men to buy them perfumes, much like with jewelry. Starting in the 1950s, Lauder had the idea of created a scented bath oil that women would feel comfortable buying themselves. Shortly thereafter, she started marketing perfumes to women. With this heritage, it makes sense that Estée Lauder Companies has chosen to acquire many fragrance brands.

During the pandemic, a curious thing happened: While people were stuck at home during lockdown, they developed a voracious appetite for new scents. It was an unexpected turn for a moment of relative solitude. For decades, the fragrance industry had marketed scents as something you wore for other people. But suddenly, even though they were’t going out, people were spraying themselves with scents throughout the day. This led to a corresponding growth in the home fragrance category. “It became clear people enjoyed the smell of these perfumes, and wanted to refresh it,” says Sumit Bhasin, SVP of corporate fragrance research and development, at Estée Lauder Companies. “They wanted their homes to be full of fragrances.”

Today, the luxury fragrance sector is continuing to grow, with sales increasing by 8% in the first half of 2024 to $15.3 billion. Many perfume brands began expanding their home fragrance offerings. And Sephora, the largest high-end beauty retailer in the world, has been expanding its indie fragrance offerings, which includes both body and home products. Estée Lauder Companies also wants to tap into this booming industry with better technology.

The Fragrance Delivery Problem

Delivering scent into a room is more difficult than you’d think, particularly when it comes to fine fragrances, which are carefully designed to balance top, middle, and bottom notes. Heat-based systems, like candles and diffusers, break down top notes, diminishing the overall scent. Meanwhile, aerosol-based systems, like sprays and some plug-ins, tend to overwhelm your senses by sending millions of fragrance molecules into the atmosphere. This hastens olfactory blindness.

During the pandemic, Abhishek Breja–along with his wife Neerja–had the vision of coming up with a new technology that would allow you to control and program how much fragrance was released into a space. He brought on Jesse Killion, an engineer who specializes in technologies that involve heat transfer. Together, they came up with a technology that converts liquid perfumes into solid form encapsulated in beads, then releases it into a gas state with a new level of precision. They’ve currently filed 10 patents for this new system, and the technology through which they convert this liquid into a solid is a trade secret.

At first glance, the Exuud’s “smart fragrance delivery system” looks like a vase. The key to this technology are the capsule of beads inside. When air wafts over the beads, it releases aromatic molecules into the air, creating the scent. “This is how flowers release their fragrance,” says Breja. “This technology is inspired by nature.”

After weeks or months of using the device, all the fragrance molecules will be released into the air. You then dispose of the bead capsule, and buy a new one. The Exuud team has spent time trying to make the system as eco-friendly as possible. The beads are made from a polymer derived from plants that will biodegrade at the end of its life; it has an 80% smaller carbon footprint than comparable petroleum-derived plastic beads.

But the important thing about this innovation is that Exuud can precisely control how much fragrance is released by controlling the airflow. It’s possible to program the device to change the airflow, which changes the intensity of the fragrance in the air. “With spray devices, like a Glade plug-in, you’re flooding the room with a burst of fragrance molecules,” says Killion. “But here, we can release airflow in a controlled way.”

Breja believes that this is the way to overcome olfactory fatigue. By releasing fragrance at intervals, increasing then decreasing the volume of aromatic molecules in the air, our noses will not adapt to the scent. It’s important to note that this hasn’t been tested or verified by scientists; so far, he is basing this on anecdotal evidence.

Dalton, the olfactory scholar, has not seen this system. However, her research suggests that while changing the intensity of a fragrance may allow you to keep perceiving it over the short term, it is likely that our brains will filter out the scent over the long term. This is why people who deal with chemicals in factories or waste management are able to filter out these smells, even though their intensity changes over time. “The solution would be to change the fragrance every so often, so you can continue perceiving the scent,” Dalton says.

From a luxury fragrance perspective, this technology appears to be much better at preserving the complexity of the scent. Since there is no heat involved, even the most volatile top notes remain intact.

An Exclusive Partnership

Estée Lauder Companies has invested an undisclosed amount in Exuud, and it has also signed an exclusive commercial agreement that allows the conglomerate to integrate its devices into its fragrance portfolio. It expects the first products to launch in 2025.

Different brands will customize Exuud’s device in a way that fits into their brand image. Le Labo could create a device that reflects its industrial-chic aesthetic; Jo Malone may create something that is more classic and feminine. But the bead technology inside will be the same. Each brand will effectively white label Exuud’s technology, creating capsules of beads that look like just another product within its line.

Exuud is developing an app that will automate the way the device operates. Users can set the device to release scents at particular times of the day, for instance, or change the intensity of the scent to their liking. Exuud can even identify when the capsule of beads may be running out of fragrance, and prompt the user to order more.

While the pandemic deepened the world’s love of home fragrance, Estée Lauder Companies believes that it can build on the current explosion in the fragrance market thanks to this new innovation. And brands within the portfolio are currently at work incorporating the technology into their product lines. “We invested in this technology because we think it’s more than just an incremental improvement,” says Bhasin. “We think it could change the way we experience fragrance.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Segran has been a staff writer at Fast Company since 2014. She covers fashion, retail, and sustainability. She has interviewed Virgil Abloh, Mara Hoffman, Telfar, Diane von Furstenberg, and Ulla Johnson, among many other designers.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91256985/say-goodbye-to-your-candles-estee-lauder-just-designed-a-better-way-to-make-your-home-smell-good